An electrical power monitoring system typically includes metering devices, communication devices, workstations and a server, all of which are networked. The metering devices measure critical circuits, alarm on set conditions and log data. The communication devices connect the metering devices to a standard local area network (“LAN”). The server stores the data in a data base for reporting and trending electrical usage and anomalies. The workstations allow users access to the data stored on the server. These power monitoring networks are complex and typically custom designed for each facility. Each system is unique in its application and usage.
When a customer has a power monitoring system problem that cannot be solved by the customer's personnel, the customer contacts the technical support staff of the manufacturer of the power monitoring equipment. That technical support staff typically connects to the customer's system via a remote connection and executes a trouble shooting process. On occasions the problem is too difficult for the technical support staff to solve, and thus design engineers travel to the customer's site to investigate the issue. It is often difficult to determine the correct individuals to send to the customer's site for a given problem. Due to the complexity of power monitoring systems, there is often no one individual who is an expert on all aspects of a given system. Additionally, these are active systems collecting crucial data, and thus there are limitations to what can be done to the customer's system without putting the data collection process at risk.